Recovery of rubber.



MORCRETTE DELAFOND, OF MEXICO, MEXICO.

RECOVERY OF RUBBER.

No Drawing.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed. April 19, 1909.

Patented Aug. 2, 1910.

Serial No. 490,939.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Mononnr'rn DELAFOND, a citizen of the Republic ofFrance, residing at and whose post-oflice address is Apartado Correo1288, Mexico city, Mexico, have invented certain new and usefulImprovements in the Recovery of Rubber; and I do hereby declare thefollowing to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention,such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains tomake and use the same.

My invention relates to the extraction and purification of rubber fromrubber bearing plants, especially such as guayule (Parthemlamargenta'tum).

Heretofore it has been the practice to grind the plants and therebyagglomerate the rubber and rubber vesicles with the resins contained inthe plants. This procedure necessitated expensive and tedious methods ofpurification in order to separate the resins intimately mixed with therubber.

My improved process has for its object to overcome to a great degree thedisadvantages of such methods at the same time considerably cheapeningthe process of extraction of the rubber and consists, so to speak ofeffecting the purification of the rubber in the plant itself.

In carrying out my present new method I first soak the rubber plants,especially guayule for from four to five days in cold water. By coldwater I mean water as it comes from springs and streams, usually at atemperature below 100 F. If not sufficiently cold the water may becooled by any well known means, as by adding ice. This produces a slowseparation of the resins contained in the bark or skin and causes themto traverse their cell walls in the plant and collect in small softglobules on the surface of the plants efiecting a sort of transalburnumand duramen, there are .contained resins unmixed with caoutchouc orrubber which if allowed to remain would become mixed with the rubberduring the grinding usually performed for the purpose of agglomeratingthe rubber vesicles. These resins when cold are heavier than water butwhen heated melt and float on water. I therefore use during the grindingof the plants boiling water so as to maintain a temperature of theground mass at centigrade or over, and allow the hot pulp so produced toflow off into a body of cold water whereupon the dense resins congealand sink with the wood fiber leaving almost pure rubber floating on thesurface of the cold water. This rubber is collected and purified in anyknown manner.

In lieu of the above described procedure I may also submit the crushedrubber plants before grinding to the action of steam in a centrifugalseparator. The steam liquefies the resins which are carried out of themachine with the condensed steam by centrifugal action leaving behindthe wood fiber with the rubber. The crushed and ground rubber plants maybe similarly treated with live steam in a centrifugal separator, a pulpof the crushed and finely ground plants being fed to the separator witha jet of live steam in which case the rubber will remain held insuspension in the machine.

Although I prefer the above described method of treatment on account ofits simplicity and cheapness, chemical solvents of the resins may beadded to the water to aid the separation.

I claim:

1. In the method of treating rubber plants the step which comprisesexuding the resins contained in the bark of the plant and removing them.

2. In the method of treating rubber plants the step which comprisessoaking the plants in cold water until the resins contained in the barkor skins are exuded and removing the exuded resins.

3. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises exuding theresins contained in the bark or skin of the plant and then melting andremoving the exuded resins.

4. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises soaking theplants in cold water until the resins contained in the bark or skin areexuded and then heating the plants and water until the exuded resins aremelted and float on the surface of the Water.

5. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises first removingthe bark resins, then grinding the plants and separating the denserresins and wood fiber from the rubber.

6. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises first removingthe resins from the bark or skin, then grinding the plants in hot water,and precipitating the' remaining resins and Wood fiber from the rubber.

7. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises first removingthe resins from the bark or skin, then grinding the plants in hot Water,then cooling the pulp so formed to precipitate the resins and wood fiberand collecting the floating rubber.

8. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises first removingthe resins from the bark or skin, then grinding the plants in hot water,and causing the heated pulp to flow into cold water to precipitate theresins and wood fiber.

9. The method of treating rubber plants which comprises soaking theplants in Water until the resins contained in the bark are exuded, thenheating the plants with hot In testimony that I claim the foregoing asmy invention, I have signed my name in presence of two subscribingwitnesses.

MORCRETTE DELAFOND.

Vitnesses G. A. GUERRA, NICA'UDRO Ancos.

